That night, Lavi grabbed the very last bit of blood from the fridge and tossed it back as fast as he could. Making a sentient being would be a no doubt lengthy process and his master would not appreciate him taking his sweet time with it.
He had better start soon so he would have something to tell Yu when the demon asked about his progress. He then headed down to the laboratory; the sooner the girl was dead, the sooner he could replenish the blood stores.
As soon as Lavi slid open the heavy metal door to the lab, a small whimpering sound met his ears. The girl on the exam table was struggling desperately against her bindings; desperately but weakly.
That was an understandable and fairly average response to going without food or water for upwards of ten hours. The fact that she was still fighting it at all was an impressive testament to either her nerve or her fear. Lavi wished he could reward it, but he had promised his master a pair of eyes and hands, so he needed them.
The vampire's shoes made a dull thudding sound on the thick wooden floor, quickly drawing the attention of the girl on the table. Teary and downright terrified eyes honed in on his vampiric form, looking scared and (oddly enough) relieved, in equal measure. Probably glad for any company after being left alone for so long, Lavi thought.
She stared at him for a time, tears falling from his eyes as he stepped towards her.
"Please!" She burst out, ceasing her struggles for a moment. "Please help me!" She pleaded.
"How would I do that?" Lavi casually questioned, feeling his more sadistic personality come out to play. She looked surprised at the question, but still a little hopeful.
"Get these cuffs off of me. There must be something in here that you can use to break them!"
"Hm . . ." Lavi hummed to himself, piercing green eyes coldly taking in the poor wretch. He took up the spot in front of a cabinet that he knew had most of what he needed. He opened the cabinet and began to pull out certain items and placing them on a cart with wheels.
Lavi really did appreciate the many implements that his master had paid good money for. A metal cart, for example, which was easy to clean, hard to stain, and ridiculously efficient to move about the room. He didn't answer the young woman until she spoke to him again.
"Are you looking for the right tool?" She asked. A look over his shoulder allowed Lavi to see that she was leaning up off the table as well as she could and craning her neck to see what he was doing.
He deigned to answer this time. "Oh, yes, I am looking for the right tools. Something sharp certainly is necessary." He forebodingly murmured just loud enough for her to hear, a smirk tugging at his lips. It seemed Deak was coming out in full force.
Unbeknownst to him as he searched, the girl relaxed in her restraints.
Finally, someone had come for her, Elena thought. He must be from the village. Maybe her father sent him . . . or Maria. She did not know how long she had been there, but she had spent a good part of it worrying about her friend and what might have become of poor Maria, but if this young man was here, perhaps only Elena herself had been taken.
With absolute certainty, she knew that this young man would have been more relieved to see her if they had cause to worry of her safety. Yes, Maria must have been left behind or else imprisoned in another dank chamber, as well as she was.
The boy did seem strange, but not in a way that she could very well place. Elena had not been around many men in her short life, the most close members of the opposite sex being her family. She had seen and spoken to men outside of her family in passing, of course, such as elderly shop owners and associates of her father that came to the house.
Other than those instances, she could only remember troubling herself with her father and elder brothers, of which she had three; Charles, Alexander, and Andrei. They were much older than she, but had yet to be wed. Elena and her father hoped that Elena should be wed soon, most preferably to a man of honorable repute, as to not sully her family name.
Elena's mother had died ten years ago, but one of the only memories she had was of her mother rocking in a chair, bathed in sunlight from a nearby window and doing her darning work. The little Elena, the very picture of her mother with the older woman's face and golden hair, but with her father's eyes, laid at her mother's feet. Elena remembered staring up at her mother with awe and love as the elder woman worked.
"My sweet, beautiful child." Her mother's lyrical voice had toned on that warm evening. "In life you will learn a great many lessons, some easy, some hard. One of the hardest lessons some girls learn is that of their own body. The most precious object every woman possesses is her body, but the body may lie.
It may urge a young lady to give herself to a man before marriage and this pull, this lure, may seem too impossible to ignore. A false love that cannot be trusted, giving into this urge will prove to be the ruin of the young lady's future. 'In purity excelith she, just like an angel bright.' In purity only can a lady be married, remember that, Dear."
"Yes, Mama." Elena had said, holding the well-meaning words close to her heart forever.
Because of this memory, it was not only her father's and her brother's protectiveness that kept her away from boys her age. She was deeply determined to treasure herself and keep members of the opposite sex at arm's length.
Maria was her best friend and had been for many years. Yet, they could not be more different from each other. While Elena was quiet and withdrawn, determined to be the perfect daughter and one day be the perfect wife, Maria seemed to exist outside of herself. She took better to boys than she did girls, flirting and leading them on as she breathed, with no intent behind it.
Maria lied to her father and fought with him and broke rules at the slightest opportunity. Though she would never say it to her dear friend, Elena knew it was only a matter of time before Maria embarked upon the most serious of transgressions; premarital relations. No man would marry Maria if there were question regarding her virtue, but they may procure her to their dark purpose without intent to marry.
Elena did not want that to happen, but Maria rarely listened to good advice, so all she could do was watch, dismayed, as dear Maria moved towards her miserable end. Elena's mother truly had been right.
This man, though . . . Elena thought, coming back to the present. He could possibly be the answer to the long-asked question of who Elena would marry.
A protective knight like the kind she had ready about in her story books would surely be a worthy husband. He seemed a bit withdrawn from her, but he might be all the better for it. Certainly a might better than the men her brothers had told her about, who smiled like snakes a dripped poisonous words tasting of honey.
No deceit to be had from this one, though. Just like when her mother met her father.
"Have you found the right tool yet?" She called to the man, craning her neck to get a better look at what he was doing. She tried to make sure her voice sounded sweet. She couldn't see what he was doing very well, since he had his back turned to her, but it looked like he was pulling various tools out of a cabinet and placing them on some kind of rolling cart.
The red haired man (and how strange and rare that hair color was) stopped his sorting as she spoke. Then, without turning around, he answered in a calm and deliberate tone. "About ready. I think I see what I need in the far back corner. It will be just a moment longer and then you'll be freed. Best to relax, my lady."
Taking his words to heart, Elena let out a relieved breath and indeed did relax back on the table. She would be freed. She would be out of harm's way with someone to protect and guide her and from there, she could find Maria (hopefully unhurt) and they could go home then. She could see her father and brother and maybe introduce them to her savior.
He was strange, she would admit. People in her village didn't like things that were strange or different, but at least he looked strong and protective. That would do. A metallic clinking and the sounds of footsteps coming closer drew her attention back to the man. He was holding a sharp tool in his hand as he came steadily towards her, his green eyes transfixed on her form.
Well, no need to wonder if he was interested in her, it seems. They would have a happy life together. And, oh good, he had the tool he was looking for. Now he could free her and they could be off and, actually . . .
Elena tilted her head slightly and peered closer at the tool in his hand, scrutinizing it. She would admit to not being well-versed in tools of any kind that weren't widely used in the kitchen, but it was a strange piece of machinery. It was small, much smaller than the knives her brothers and fathers used, but that wasn't a fair comparison since it wasn't a knife.
Actually, she really hadn't the slightest what it was. It had a long, slim metal handle with two clamps closer to the end of it. At the end, it formed a circle with a deep hole in the middle.
Hmm . . . . it really looked like a corer of some kind and now that she thought of it, that seemed that was most likely what it was. The last thing she noticed about its appearance was the spikes ringing around the edge. Perfect for cutting if it really was a corer. An interesting technology, to be sure, but . . .
She squinted at it harder. It looked completely useless for cutting her free. The cutting blades around the edges are fine for a corer, but would be difficult to use for anything else. Why he choose to use that over any other tool? It didn't make any sense . . .
He stopped beside the table she was strapped to and just looked down at her. She shifted nervously but couldn't move very much, she was strapped down too tight. Something was wrong with this picture, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
"Are you going to cut me loose?" She had meant the question to be rhetorical, just to urge him forward with the weapon. After all, of course he would cut her free and that would be it. Of course.
Yet, her tone of voice came out much different than she'd intended. Instead of confident and knowing, it came out as worried and insecure. An actual question. And he gave an actual answer.
"No. I was never intending to do that."
Numb seconds ticked by. He didn't say anything, she didn't say anything. Nothing was said.
"No." She breathed, at last. "No. No, you can't mean that." She sounded surprisingly pleading to her own ears.
"See, I need you for something." He stated coldly, his voice dead.
"W-What?" Elena gasped, her voice shuddering. Did he want from her what men normally wanted from Maria? She wasn't like that! Her hands trembled in their restraints.
"I need parts, of course." He stated. "Your eyes, in particular." He cocked his head to the side and took in the sight of her strapped down arms, gaze analytical like a doctor's. "Maybe your hands, too."
W-What? No-That-What? "What?" That was the only word that could make it past her trembling lips.
"Hmm . . ." The man hummed. "You're pretty slow on the uptake, aren't you? I need your body parts, my lady. You also need to be alive when I take them, really. Freshness of the parts is very important if I'm to make another person out of them . . ."
"Another . . . person . . ?" Her voice cracked, her eyes widening in horror. This was a nightmare! It had to be! It had to-
Unwillingly, and oh how she did try to fight it, her eyes fell back to the tool in the redhead's hand. Corer. Oh lord.
"Let's get started, shall we? The procedure had been put off for long enough." The dead green eyes sent such a thrill through her as she had never felt before. He advanced on her.
No! No!" She let out the wail that was almost an inhuman screech. She meant to tug wildly on her bonds, but it felt like she hadn't eaten in so long that her arms barely obeyed her enough to twitch. Even crying out felt like it took her last reserves of energy to do and she felt a tear slide down her cheek, followed by more.
She-She wasn't ready. Of God, she wasn't ready!
The horrifying cutting device was placed over her left eye. Her left eye was forced to stare at the inside of the cold metal contraption, while her right eye flickered to and away from the man's face. She couldn't look at him long, his features were unsettlingly blank.
With a surprising, sudden, sharp force, the hand holding the eye corer jabbed down and no one but a dark demonic figure several floors up in the mansion heard the blood curdling screams of pure anguish that came from the basement that night.
